The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today the Museum is acquiring Bust of Pope Paul V (1621) by the great Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598-1680). The posthumous life-sized sculpture was the first official papal portrait Bernini created; he was twenty-three. Commissioned by Bernini’s famous patron, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, it was part of the Borghese family’s well-known collection until 1893, when it was sold at auction. Until now, art historians have only known the object through a photograph taken for the 1893 auction catalog and a bronze version cast by Sebastiano Sebastiani in 1621-1622, which is in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, as well as original records of its commission. It recently reappeared in a private collection. “Bernini was the towering genius of his age, acknowledged in his lifetime and ever since as the most versatile, inventive,

Read More: J. Paul Getty Museum acquires recently rediscovered ‘Bust of Pope Paul V’ by Bernini